


Prone To a Love Travesty

by dandelionandburdock



Series: Untitled [3]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-18
Updated: 2012-11-18
Packaged: 2017-11-18 22:19:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/565893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandelionandburdock/pseuds/dandelionandburdock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>My hate is contagious,</em> Zayn thinks. <em>It ravages, it slaughters, it diminishes. Why do you love me when I don’t love myself? Why do you love me when I can’t love?</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Prone To a Love Travesty

**Author's Note:**

> This just popped into my head today. I don’t know, I guess I was feeling a bit sad :)

 

Zayn doesn't want Niall. No, scratch that. He doesn't want Niall to want _him_. He wishes the poor bastard wasn't so in love with him. He's going to get his heart broken. He doesn't want that for him.

They are sitting in their hotel room, sheets and clothes shattered around them as if a tornado has ravaged between the four walls (and in a way, it has). It’s quiet but not the quiet before the storm. It is the quiet after the storm when everyone is trying to pick themselves up and make sense of what has just happened. It is been a hell of a storm and people need to check if they are still alive.

Zayn has stopped checking a long time ago. For Niall’s sake he wishes he wasn’t dead but he is and he can’t help it.

Niall is so warm. Zayn wishes his warmness could breathe life into him.

He thinks that, in a way, Niall wishes for the same. Maybe that is why he always hangs onto him so tightly. Even now, he is sitting in his lap, both of them naked, his legs wrapped around Zayn’s waist; the two of them perfectly entwined like twigs in a vine. He’s cuddled up on his chest, crying because Zayn told him to leave, because he told him that this should end.

Why hasn’t he left yet? Everyone else does. Perrie did.

_Why hasn’t he left yet?_

Zayn can feel Niall’s heart beating against his chest; fluttering like a bird in a cage. Zayn knows he is that cage and it pains him.

But he’s letting the bird go. Why wouldn’t it flee?

 

Zayn is torn between his own desires and logic. He knows that Niall shouldn’t be his; he should chase him away now and give him a chance to be happy. Of course, it will hurt in the beginning, but he will learn to love again. He’s going to find someone who makes him smile and who won’t break him. Ever.

But what Zayn wants is beyond reason. He wants Niall, Niall, Niall. He wants him to be his and only his, and he wants him to stay even if it hurts.

It is so sick that it reminds him of _Lolita_. How did it begin?

_“Lolita. Love of my life. Fire of my loins.”_

Well, Zayn has never been in love; he doesn’t know what it feels like. But he knows what Niall’s presence does to him, and he doesn’t want to let go of it.

He should let go.

He won’t let go.

 

Lolita didn’t end well, did it?

Or maybe it did, Zayn doesn’t remember any more.

But he wants Niall’s story to end well. He wants him to be happy. He wants him to love, and laugh, and live. Instead, he is stuck in this fucked up poor excuse for a relationship where he feels like shit (he has never said it but Zayn knows. And honestly, who wouldn’t?)

“We can still fuck, if you want,” Zayn remembers saying a few weeks ago.

“But that’s not what I want, Zayn,” Niall murmurs.

“You said you want me.”

“Yes.”

And honestly, Zayn doesn’t get it.

 

He sucks in his cigarette and then breathes out the smoke. Niall slowly unwraps his arms off Zayn. He takes Zayn’s cigarette and smokes in. He squeezes his eyes; he doesn’t let the smoke out. He holds it too long and it makes him cough.

“You shouldn’t do that.”

“I feel like destroying myself.”

Zayn blames himself for that. _Haven’t I destroyed you enough already?,_ he wants to ask but the words won’t come out. He’s only staring sadly into Niall’s red Bambi eyes. _Or did I make you spiral down and hate yourself?_

_My hate is contagious,_ Zayn thinks. _It ravages, it slaughters, it diminishes. Why do you love me when I don’t love myself? Why do you love me when I can’t love?_

_My hate is contagious._

“Don’t.”

“Why? You do.”

Zayn sighs. He sounds tired; he _is_ tired.

“You won’t want me if I’m not as broken as you are.”

“I don’t want you to be broken,” Zayn answers, his voice husky. He’s fighting tears he doesn’t want to show. “I don’t want you to be like me.”

“I should be destroyed,” Niall says and envelops Zayn with his arms again. “I should be dead to understand you.” The tears are coming back, Zayn can feel them, wet and warm, on his chest. “Please, Zayn, let me be like you. Let me stay.”

Zayn swallows his own tears and hugs Niall back.

They stay like this for a while, Niall shaking in Zayn’s arms.

“I wish I couldn’t feel. I wish I was empty.”

 


End file.
